


The Apple and the Tree

by greygerbil



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: Fear of Being a Bad Parent, Feeling the baby kick, M/M, Magical Pregnancy, Mpreg, Unplanned Pregnancy, pregnancy fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:13:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23511382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/pseuds/greygerbil
Summary: Garrett is a little confused that Varric doesn't seem more excited about their unborn child.
Relationships: Male Hawke/Varric Tethras
Comments: 4
Kudos: 41
Collections: Unusual_Bearings_2020





	The Apple and the Tree

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Asymptotical](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asymptotical/gifts).



> According to the Fear demon, Varric's greatest fear is becoming his parents. That must be fun when you're about to become a parent.

Garret had practiced healing magic since he’d been a gangly little boy reviving crushed flowers and squashed bugs under his father’s tutelage and yet when he’d put his hands on Varric and realised there was a second heart-beat inside of him, he had been as baffled as a third-rate Circle novice. Thankfully, Varric’s time in the Inquisition had left him with highly knowledgeable acquaintances. A letter exchange with Grand Enchanter Vivienne culminated in the delicate question if Varric had been healed by and then, within the hour, been intimate with the same mage and whether he had _received more than just his magic_ on that latter occasion. A _protracted mingling of spirits_ , she’d called it, something that could only happen between mages and dwarves because the physical relationship dwarves had with magic was so unpredictable; but she assured them that even under these circumstances it was quite rare.

“Of course that would happen to us,” Varric had said, after showing the letter to Garrett.

“Considering all the trouble we got up to back in the day, I’m just surprised I didn’t get you pregnant sooner,” Garrett had answered, after he’d collected his jaw from the floor.

Garrett had written his own letter to the Grand Enchanter to make sure he understood how to extract the baby from Varric without damaging either of them permanently. That issue cleared up, though, he couldn’t say that he was too broken up about this new bit of weird. Garrett was used to life-altering surprises, but usually they did not have upsides like this. Lives like theirs probably didn’t come with a perfect time to bring newborns into the fray, but right now, the sky wasn’t open and the Fade wasn’t falling into the world and the city they lived in had returned to its usual cheerful chaos instead of being a simmering flame licking at kindling, waiting for the chance to turn into a conflagration. Besides that, Varric and him were both back in Kirkwall and planned on staying for good. They had been together for six years. Varric had already moved into the Amell mansion upon Garrett’s return to the city. Things seemed in as good a place as they would ever be. 

He’d told Varric as much and Varric had agreed there was really no good reason not to follow through with this magic accident.

So they would have a child.

Six months into the pregnancy, Garrett was positively giddy to meet the kid. He’d cleared out a room for them and found himself cataloguing names he liked on a page in the back of his diary. He’d collected an entirely unreasonable amount of dry elfroot, dawn lotus and prophet’s laurel. He’d also planted some of each in pots lining the entrance hall of his mansion even though their child would be born in late spring, when you couldn’t take a step out of the city without standing in a bushel of healing herbs and short of the lands around Kirkwall being burned down to the dirt, there was very little reason he wouldn’t be able to get at any when Varric was ready to deliver. Garrett had also taken his dog to watch children play outside to gauge how he’d react to them, holding him tight on a leash for the first time in fifteen years, but the mabari had never been the sort to snap at defenceless targets and even allowed a cheeky elf girl to use him as a mount for a bit.

The pleasant anticipation was greatly helped by the fact that for the first time in a long while Garrett did not feel like he carried the weight of a city on his shoulders. He’d been the Champion, and then the one who had failed in that role, and he was still the former to the people of Kirkwall and the latter to himself; but mostly, he was allowed to be Garrett Hawke again. The focus had shifted onto Varric. There was a constant stream of people in and out of the Viscount’s Keep to talk to him. Some of them also ended up at the mansion’s doorstep, though only the sort Varric wanted around weren’t sent straight back out. Among those visitor, Garrett recognised old business contacts of the official and somewhat shadier sort who had sometimes congregated in Varric’s room at the Hanged Man years ago. There were also young men and women whom he vaguely remembered from when they’d just been dirt-smeared kids running feral on the streets of Lowtown, doing odd jobs for Varric or collecting pennies for food from him even when Varric had nothing to do for them. Varric had always claimed, and still did talking about his current crop of urchins, that starving spies weren’t all that useful. When Garrett had questioned that flimsy reasoning a few weeks after he’d first gotten to know him – there was, after all, no shortage of nosey, lonely kids wandering on the streets of Kirkwall, so Varric technically wouldn’t have needed to keep specific ones alive –, Varric had just grinned, shrugged his shoulders and told him: “Come on, Hawke. If I don’t have a beard, I can’t also be seen giving money away. They won’t allow me to call myself a dwarf anymore.”

His compassion forbade him to use his little spies as effectively as he may have, but for a Viscount, his fussiness was a great trait. Through his web of contacts, he’d given a lot of these kids opportunities to try out for the city guard and become apprentices for various merchants and craftsmen once they got older. Add to that all the people he’d helped when the city had collapsed on top of them and there was no part of Kirkwall left where nobody wanted to do Varric a favour.

As far as groundwork for political leadership went, it wasn’t half-bad, and since the tensions between Templars and mages hadn’t fully simmered down yet, no one was clamouring to take control back from Varric and put themselves on the helm of this unwieldy ship on dangerous waters.

Considering circumstances, maybe it was no surprise that even as Varric got bigger, Garrett seemed to see less and less of him. He would even sit in the mansion’s library to do paperwork, a task he usually avoided by any means necessary.

“I have to get ahead of the schedule. I can’t deal with both an infant and Bran griping at once,” he’d told Garrett when he’d asked.

The answer made sense, so Garrett left him to it, though he was still fretting more than he was ready to admit. Varric wouldn’t put their kid at risk, he was too responsible for that, but he was still on his feet a lot for someone six months pregnant at this point. Maybe it just made Garrett nervous because pregnant dwarves tended to look a lot more encumbered, too, since there wasn’t much room on their squat statures; or perhaps it was that Varric had only taken glancing looks at the nursery and was usually quiet when Garrett joked and speculated about the future of their child. Garrett didn’t know what to make of that, but told himself Varric was probably just too tired for anything that didn’t need his immediate attention.

Exhaustion was the one weakness that Varric hadn’t been able to stave off during the pregnancy and so Garrett was surprised not to find him fast asleep under the covers when he came home late one night from a quick sweep of Lowtown, where a new gang of mercenaries had been making noise lately. Aveline had asked him to make an appearance alongside a few city guards, just so they’d know someone was keeping an eye on them in Kirkwall before they got into an unreasonable amount of trouble.

A shaft of dim light still shimmered on the dark stone floor from a gap in the door to the library. Garrett walked in to find Varric at the desk, flipping through a small book. The pages looked brittle and yellowed and had been sown together at the back by a clumsy hand that had not lined them up properly so that they were left sitting loose and askew. The faded text on them was handwritten.

“That doesn’t look like something our dear seneschal would settle you with,” Garrett noted.

Varric closed the notebook at the sound of his voice and smiled up at him.

“I’m done with that for today, thank the Maker.”

“So what’s keeping you up past midnight if not the thrill of taxation?”

Varric placed the book face-down on the desk.

“A while ago, I dug through the old stuff in Bartrand’s mansion that has been gathering dust and found some things I wrote when I was younger at the bottom of a chest.” He raised a brow. “I’m surprised he didn’t throw it out, actually. He probably forgot it was there.”

Garrett grabbed a chair and dragged it closer. They hadn’t often had a chance to talk in the last couple of weeks and he wouldn’t miss an opportunity.

“What did the budding author concern himself with?”

“Mostly stories about heroic child surfacer dwarves who do amazing things everybody loves them for. Like most kids, I was a little too self-centred to make for a great writer.” He flicked his gaze towards the book. “I tried to write some legends about family members I found in our annals, too. I think I thought my father would like them.”

“Did he?”

“I don’t know. He died when I was two years old. I doubt he would have, though. I seemed to be fixated on the idea of flying nugs at age six… most Orzammar dwarves are a bit too stern – and boring – for that sort of literary adventure.”

Garret grinned. “You never told me about your father,” he noted. “Or your mother for that matter.” Come to think of it, the only reason he knew anything about Bartrand’s and Varric’s relationship was that he’d gotten to know Bartrand personally, and definitely at his worst, too.

Varric shrugged his shoulders.

“Pretty difficult to say much about my father, since I don’t remember him.”

Garrett just waited. Varric’s jovial tone couldn’t hide much from him anymore – a decade of friendship would do that to you. It seemed like Varric knew it, too, since he was glancing around the room for want of some other topic to latch on to. Finally, when Garrett hadn’t relented to the silence, he simply shook his head.

“He was a kalna dwarf. If you want to know what these kinds of people are like, make a visit to the merchant’s guild and bring time because you’re in for long stories about the glories of caves. Bartrand kept a chest full of his old letters and they read like he was trying to outdo them all in the most important kalna discipline: angry bitterness.” He exhaled, glancing at the book again. “I wish I could have known him, though. There were a couple of questions I’d have liked to ask him.”

“Like what?”

“What in the name of Andraste’s tits he was thinking fixing Provings, for one. I’m not saying Orzammar isn’t a madhouse for exiling a whole clan with hundreds of people because one person messed with their precious glorified dog fights, but it’s not like they make a secret of their rules.” His fingers tapped against the surface of the desk, a forceful, uneasy motion. “I’d also like to know what would make him cling on to the memory of a place like that. Doesn’t sound too great to me, but what do I know? Apparently, it must be amazing. My mother pretty much threw her life away because she had to leave.”

From the way his mouth snapped shut, Garrett could tell he’d said more than he’d planned to.

“What do you mean?”

With no real way to back out, Varric gave another sigh.

“I can’t really tell you who my mother was, either. By the time I was old enough to remember her, she was pretty much just like any mean drunk. I never managed to help her get better.” He huffed, unamused. “Visiting Bartrand at the sanatorium feels futile in the same way being around her did. There’s less plate-throwing and worrying about merchant guild gossip now, though. Plus, I don’t have to handle him every day, although maybe I should.”

Garrett had known too many good people to expect that life was fair to them, but he still found himself cross with fate that someone like Varric, who was so happy to care for others, had spent his childhood with no one around to do the same for him.

“There’s little you can do for Bartrand.” From what Garrett had seen the one time he had visited with Varric, Bartrand was basically shut in his own world, only occasionally still talking to voices in his head. “Besides, he did still try to kill us.”

“And how much of that was the idol?” Varric lowered his head. “I guess it couldn’t have taken complete control that fast, especially not of a dwarf. He was never a particularly nice person. I’ll just always wonder.”

For a moment, Varric remained quiet before he grabbed the book and resolutely shoved it into a fold of his shirt.

“Right, enough of that. At least your side of the family shows some promise. You have a lot of experience herding cats, so kids will be nothing shocking, and now that your brother has grown up a little bit, he will make a fine uncle.”

Garrett laughed.

“Carver actually asked me if you’d stop calling him Junior now that a younger Hawke relative is on the way.”

Varric smirked. “Not a chance,” he said, as he slid off the chair that was too tall for him. “Want to head up to bed? You still have to tell me where you were all evening while I wallowed in memories. Aveline threatened she had work for you, didn’t she?”

Garrett nodded his head, willing to let the topic slide. With a newborn coming up, it didn’t surprise him that Varric would get caught up thinking about his own family. Garrett had done a lot of that in the last months, too. He remembered his family fondly, but only Carver was left now and for a while he had thought it might be better not to tempt fate again by trying to build on the scorched ashes. Fate, however, had obviously had other plans for him and by the way his heart lifted whenever he looked at Varric’s expanded stomach, he knew it was good this way.

“Gladly. Let me tell you how your strong, imposing and dashingly handsome lover had a whole band of mercenaries shaking in their boots.”

-

Walking into the Viscount’s Keep was always an adventure these days. The upset in Kirkwall and the surrounding world had left politics upended in many ways. Varric was still squabbling daily with the new Knight Commander about the fact that the Circle now kept its doors open. The mages were still encouraged to live there – although considering the father of Varric’s child was a well-known mage gallivanting daily through Hightown, Varric was smart enough not to press that point too hard –, but they were allowed to come and go as they pleased, and so far this compromise had kept a nervous truce between the distrustful population of Kirkwall and its mages. There were also all manner of people eager to climb into the holes the destruction of Kirkwall had left in the city’s power structures, so nobles and rich merchants and powerful criminals filled the Keep. Garrett, who still held sway in Kirkwall of his own and was, of course, considered the short track to the Viscount, could sometimes hardly cross the Keep’s entrance hall to visit Varric.

When Garrett had disentangled himself from the supplicants and walked into the throne room this evening, he saw a stranger with Varric. The man was dwarven and what remained visible of his face behind a big braided beard was red and contorted in anger.

“You could have asked me first if you wanted to know about a permit, Beldar. I can’t grant it. The alienage belongs to the elves. You’d have to speak with Vendrala.”

The condescending exasperation in Varric’s voice told Garrett that the conversation had been going on for a while.

“Of course you can, you just won’t! You’re a dwarf, too, you should be trying to help me. You know very well that bitch doesn’t talk to me!”

“That’s something you should have taken into consideration before you got the bright idea to send your man to threaten to burn the Alienage tree down last year,” Varric said, in the slow tone of one speaking to a child. “You’re not wrong – by rights, I _could_ go over Vendrala’s head on this if I wanted to. But I’m not going to.”

Garrett had just started to enjoy the exchange when Beldar took a step forward and punched Varric in the face. It seemed to take Varric by surprise as much as it did Garrett, for he made no attempt to defend himself. The next attack was a kick aimed at Varric’s stomach, but even pregnant Varric was fleet-footed enough to dance out of the way. There was no follow-up from Beldar, since by that point, Garrett had overcome his shock and launched towards them, grabbing Beldar from behind. A couple of startled guards followed him.

“Assaulting the Viscount in front of half a dozen witnesses, now that’s smart. This one goes to Captain Aveline,” Garrett told the guards as he hauled Beldar out of Varric’s reach.

Surprise had given Beldar an edge, but his attempts to free himself were rather pitiful. Garrett didn’t spare him another glance as he was dragged away shouting threats, but turned to Varric instead. He was staring after Beldar, blood trickling from his nose down over his lips.

“Let me fix that for you.”

Garret took Varric’s head in his hands and tested his nose with his thumbs. It didn’t seem broken, but his pregnant partner with blood dripping down his chin was still a sight Garret could have done without. Varric was silent, but he did not turn away as healing magic flowed into him with a bright glow.

“Thanks,” he murmured. “I guess I deserved that one.”

“Why? Do you think you should have given him his permit?”

“I’d rather hand-feed it to a bronto. But why am I pissing Beldar off without a guard between us? I’ve known the man since we were brats and he’s never had a good temper.” Varric reached up to right the seat of his crown. He looked shaken and annoyed. “I’m going to be a great father at this rate. Can’t even keep my child out of fights when it’s not even born yet.”

The anger in his voice was too real to make it sound like a joke. Garrett looked at him in confusion.

“Does Beldar usually throw punches?” he asked.

“No, I guess not,” Varric admitted. “Still, it’s not exactly a shock.”

“If it’s the first time, how were you supposed to know?”

Varric just shrugged and turned away. “I need to wash my face before the legates from Wycome show up or Bran is going to have a heart attack. Aveline wanted to talk to you. I will pick you up afterwards.”

-

They walked back home from the Viscount’s Keep an hour later. The sun had long set behind the tiled roofs and towering stone buildings, but they made sure to stay on the broadest streets were there were still too many people for even the bravest robbers to take them all on. Varric was silent, staring ahead with a frown etched into his face. He hadn’t said a word since they’d walked down the steep stone steps before the Keep.

Following a sudden thought, Garrett stopped him under the ornate sign of a tavern called the _Flying Griffon_. He didn’t know the place, but it would do as well as any.

“Want to have supper here?” he asked.

“The two of us in a Hightown tavern? They will force us to use cutlery.”

The answer came without much of Varric’s usual spirit, but he allowed Garrett to lead them off the street towards the door.

“At least there probably isn’t rat meat in the stew – or they’ll be polite enough to lie about it.”

The tavern was indeed suspiciously clean, lit with beeswax candles that didn’t fill the whole room with acrid-smelling black smoke. Garrett deposited Varric at a table in the corner and ordered the roast meat with skirret, which he carried back alongside ale for himself, to help his nerves, and milk for Varric.

“Why do I feel put on the spot?” Varric asked, looking up at him as he arranged their meal.

“Because you’re clever,” Garrett said, falling down on a chair.

The table he had picked for them was in the back, as far away from prying ears as any place in Kirkwall could be. If he’d let them get home, Garrett had a hunch that Varric would shut himself up in the library again and deliberately avoid any conversation with him. He’d been doing a lot of that lately, but since he really did have work to do, it had been close enough to reasonable behaviour that Garrett hadn’t known what to say about it. Varric had pushed past that today with his odd comment and suddenly, a worrying idea crowded Garrett’s mind, expanding to settle as dread in his stomach and squeeze his ribcage tight.

Varric took a sip of his milk. “Well, let me have it, then.”

Garrett considered making a joke or trying to clear the air first, but decided to cut straight to the chase for once.

“Do you actually want this child?”

Because they’d never had that conversation, he’d realised. Garrett had said it made sense to keep it and Varric had nodded his head. How likely was it they would make magic like this happen twice, after all? But unlike Garrett, Varric had never actually said he wanted a baby.

“Yes,” Varric said with enough conviction to wipe the thought away like a flimsy chalk drawing. “I think you’ll be a great father.”

“Then why don’t you seem to look forward to it? I don’t think you’ve stepped into the nursery yet and even Bran is getting worried about how much paperwork you’re doing.”

Varric busied himself with his milk for a moment and sighed. “I wish this was alcohol,” he said, “which I suppose is part of the problem.”

“You’re going to have to be a little clearer than that.”

“I just don’t know if the kid is going to have a great time with me as the father.”

Garrett stared at him in abject confusion. There was probably not a person in Thedas who he thought would make a better parent than Varric. He’d always been the sort to care for the people he liked. Even back in the day, he’d been keeping guards off Merrill and Anders without even telling them, and now he’d basically taken the whole of Kirkwall under his wing and seemed to enjoy it quite a bit.

“Of course you’ll be a good father. I’m pretty sure even people who don’t like you would admit that. They’d just call you an overbearing busybody.”

Varric gave him a bit of a smile, but it did not look genuine.

“That’s not enough to be a good parent.” He shook his head. “Here’s the thing… I don’t exactly do stuff by the book a lot of the time and I’ve bitten off a lot with this Viscount deal. I think it’s the right thing to do, but what if I mess it up? What if I do something that will fall back on all of us, like my father did? I’m sure he thought he had it all handled when he was messing with the Provings.” He pushed the milk away from himself and sat up straight. “Or what if I just lose it at some point like my mother?” He stopped himself. “There was a time when I was at Skyhold when – you came out of the Fade, of course, but just the thought that you could have been gone, and knowing Kirkwall laid in pieces… I don’t know, crawling into a bottle didn’t sound so bad in that moment.”

“But you didn’t do that, You never did,” Garrett pointed out. “And I think you like Kirkwall far too much to do anything that’s truly against the city’s interest. You wouldn’t even be Viscount if you didn’t care. You may be a bit of a crook – which is a compliment! –, but I don’t think you’re the sort of crook your father was. Besides, I know you don’t even want to put _me_ in danger. I doubt you’d be less careful with a child.”

Garrett had never liked the plan of leaving Varric to the Inquisition, but Varric had insisted. Knowing that this might have cost him Varric if he’d been at the wrong place during the Conclave still haunted Garrett to this day. Varric had always protected him when he could.

“Trying is not enough, either. Trying to help them didn’t do a thing for my mother or Bartrand. And how many times have I pulled you into some sort of mess? I might not want to put you in danger, but it’s been a blighted theme!”

“Come now, give me a little more credit. We never got into any messes together against my will or knowledge,” Garrett shot back.

There was a tense moment of silence before Varric gave a rough chuckle. “Well, you’ve been with me for six years. There has to be something going on with your judgement.”

Garrett shook his head at him. “Your self-confidence is not usually this low. Why is this coming up now?”

“Because I’ve been able to shove all of that comfortably away until your weird magic kid ruined my plans,” Varric muttered. “Then I pulled these old writings out a few months ago. They were made-up stories, but kids write what they feel and they were just – sad. I keep wondering if in twenty years, I’ll find stories our child wrote and they will be just like that because of me.”

“They won’t,” Garrett said forcefully. “And you know what? I only have one brother left. By your logic, I should be just as worried. My track record with family isn’t great.”

“What happened to your family was tragic, but it wasn’t your fault, nor theirs. What happened with me and my family is different.”

“But you’re not responsible for your parents. You don’t remember your father, it would be difficult for him to have had an influence on you. You also don’t even let me take care of you when you’re sick, so you’re a far cry from a drunk who doesn’t seem to care he needs a handler,” Garrett said, serious for a moment. “So let’s agree we will both try our best and attempt not to mess this kid up? We’ve been an alright team so far.” He gave him his most charming smile. “What could possibly go wrong?”

Finally, Varric laughed, though it seemed to be against his will.

“When you put it like that, how could I be worried?” he said, picking up his eating knife, but leaving it to linger over the roast meat for a moment. “Maybe I should have a look at that nursery, too. Who knows what you get up to without someone to keep an eye on you?”

-

“This crib looks sturdy, but the way I know you, we’re going to have the baby in our bed most of the time, anyway.”

Varric let his hand glide over the dark wooden railing of the small bed.

“What? I could be the strict parent,” Garrett claimed, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

Varric snorted.

“You can’t even keep your _dog_ out of our bed.”

This was true and while Garrett still searched for an appropriate comeback, Varric opened the chest with toys that stood in the corner, surveying the array of wooden and stone figurines, cloth dolls, marbles and other playthings Garrett hat collected.

“This looks like we already have three kids,” he pointed out.

“I buy things when I see them at the market! You don’t know when these traders will come back,” Garrett argued with a lopsided grin. Even he had to admit that it looked like a lot all piled up.

Shaking his head, Varric stepped back. “Well, it’s good to know one of us was preparing, anyway, while I was going down my spiral,” he said flatly. “The house looks ready for a child.”

Garrett walked up to Varric, who still looked around the room, and put his arms around his neck from behind.

“Better now?” he asked.

Varric leaned back into his chest.

“Yeah, I think so. If you trust me to pull this off, I guess I can at least give it a shot.” He closed his eyes. “I also never want to talk this much about my family ever again and I’m contemplating getting you drunk so you forget what I already told you.”

“Oh no. You bared your heart to me and now you have to live with my knowledge of all your secrets.”

Varric groaned in exaggerated suffering before he turned around and hugged Garrett as close as he could with the swell of his stomach in the way, but separated quickly.

“The kid apparently wants to weigh in on this moment, too. I guess kicking is a way to contribute,” he noted, placing a hand over his stomach.

“They’re eager to meet us. Can I?”

Varric hadn’t ever stopped him from touching his stomach, but he’d not mentioned the baby moving before except to healers inquiring about how his pregnancy went. Garrett had only caught it by chance, usually when they laid in bed together, and since Varric hadn’t seemed too enthusiastic about being pawed, he’d left it at quick touches. His silence about all to do with the child made a lot more sense in hindsight. Garrett wished he’d asked sooner.

“Be my guest, but they’re not that talkative yet.”

“Considering we are the parents, this will be the last time this child isn’t talking,” Garrett said as he knelt down and parted Varric’s tunic, framing his belly with his hands before putting his cheek against his warm skin. He could feel the child moving underneath, fussing lazily, and imagined a newborn doing the same in Varric’s arms.

“You’re adorable,” Varric said with a sigh, patting him on the head with his broad hand and resting it on his hair. “I should have gotten it together sooner.”

“Don’t worry. We still have three months, you will be sick of me hanging all over you by then,” Garrett said, pulling himself up on Varric’s shoulders to kiss him.

When they parted, Varric looked up at him.

“You know, there is one thing I tried to do... I started to write a children’s story. Figured maybe it’d be a way to connect.”

“Children’s stories? You?” Garrett burst out.

“My first attempt _did_ try to end in a murder mystery, so I’m still working on it,” Varric said. “Now that I’m caught up on all that dreary paperwork, maybe I can get back to it. I might produce something readable by the time they’re old enough to understand it.”

Garrett smiled. He knew Varric well enough to say that if there was a manuscript of unfinished children’s tales, it meant that Varric had never fully given up on this idea. With a little help from Garrett, hopefully he’d be really looking forward to this kid when it was big enough to face the outside world.

“Who knows, maybe that’s your new niche? Best-selling children’s book author Varric Tethras?”

“Only if your life becomes significantly less interesting. I’m still sort of your biographer.”

“If you keep running Kirkwall as efficiently as you do, that might even happen.” Garrett raised a brow. “The two of us living a marginally peaceful life – can you imagine?”

Varric glanced back at the crib with a pale smile.

“I think so.”


End file.
